Calaveras officials say their goodbyes

SAN ANDREAS - Four top Calaveras County leaders - three elected supervisors and the county's administrative officer - said goodbye Tuesday.

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By Dana M. Nichols

recordnet.com

By Dana M. Nichols

Posted Dec. 19, 2012 at 12:01 AM

By Dana M. Nichols

Posted Dec. 19, 2012 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

SAN ANDREAS - Four top Calaveras County leaders - three elected supervisors and the county's administrative officer - said goodbye Tuesday.

Together for their last Board of Supervisors meeting, at least in their current roles, were County Administrative Officer Jeanne Boyce, and supervisors Gary Tofanelli, Tom Tryon and Steve Wilensky.

Next month three new members will be sworn into the five-member board, which will immediately begin looking for a new top administrator and for ways to keep Calaveras County government solvent and functioning.

But Tuesday was a time to look back, sometimes with quavering voices and sometimes with laughter.

Adding it all up, the four have served in Calaveras County government for more than six decades. Tryon, with 28 years on the Board of Supervisors and another couple years before that as a planning commissioner, accounts for almost half the total.

Boyce, who came to the county as a senior administrative analyst in 1992, adds two decades to the tally.

Wilensky served eight years and Tofanelli served four.

"It is the best job I ever had," said Wilensky, who spent his early adulthood in blue collar jobs in the restaurant and warehouse industries. "It is also the worst working conditions I've ever experienced."

Wilensky and Boyce are retiring. Tryon and Tofanelli sought re-election and lost.

"I came with no expectations," Tofanelli told those at Tuesday's meeting. "I leave with no regrets."

Tofanelli, like others who are departing, noted that the job proved difficult. His entire time on the board, in particular, came when county tax revenues were shrinking every year, forcing unpopular and painful cuts in everything from law enforcement to libraries.

That harsh reality gave a bittersweet feeling to the goodbyes.

"It is with a certain degree of sadness that I am leaving, although it is overwhelmed by the sense of joy I have," Tryon said.

Said Boyce: "It's been a roller coaster. I can't say it has always been fun."